The bridge, and the gap

Corinth Canal, Greece

To sail from the Ionian Islands to the Aegean Sea, you can either go south around the Peloponnisos, or travel east through the Gulf of Corinth; we chose to go east. The entrance to the Gulf of Corinth is marked by the Rion-Andirrion suspension bridge, the longest cable-stayed bridge in the world. Passing under bridges with a tall mast is always nerve racking, no matter how certain you are that the bridge is tall enough, it always looks like the mast is going to hit. The Rion-Andirrion is 2,252 meters long with three navigable channels and an air height of 24 to 45 meters. As you approach the bridge, you call on the radio, give your mast height and they tell you which channel to pass through. Berkeley East has a mast height of 23 meters, so with a minimum bridge height of 25 meters, we did not want to go through the lowest section.

To exit the Gulf of Corinth, you must pass through the Corinth Canal. Completed in 1893, it is 3.2 miles long and 25 meters wide, with limestone walls that rise 79 meters above sea level. The canal also has the distinction of being one of the most expensive canals in the world per mile. We had read that boats often have to wait up to three hours to be cleared to navigate the canal, so we were very excited when we announced our approach and were cleared immediately. In the lead was a 300-foot tanker being towed by a tug and three sailboats, including Berkeley East, followed behind. We quickly realized why boats sometimes have to wait long periods to pass through the canal. The tanker was being towed so slowly, what could have been a quick 30-minute passage turned into two hours of fighting the current to keep BE moving at a much slower pace than she is used to. But the ancients used to drags ships across the isthmus on a paved road, so we considered ourselves lucky to be able to glide through the beautiful canal.